


into the clear waters

by pistolgrip



Series: gbf 76 week 2019 [3]
Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 13:57:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19747144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pistolgrip/pseuds/pistolgrip
Summary: In moving forward, Six looks back.(for day 3 - late! - of siesix week, day & night/the eternals.)





	into the clear waters

There are times when a miracle enters Six's life. The first one was so short-lived that he has no problems calling it a miracle, the magic fading as time passes until he'd nearly lost faith in it all together. He believed in only divine retribution to show him his path to hell, but instead of being left to die, he'd been pulled out again by a man as persistent as the one he'd known but infinitely more annoying.

His life with the Eternals taught him that it was the little things that became miracles, and he holds no doubts that the ones that have found him now will return to him, again and again.

He chooses to indulge in one of the miracles he's stumbled upon on a night like this, when he wants an intermission from the Eternals' routines. They're used to seeing him slink off into the night, and they spare him no more than a passing glance when he passes them in the common room and heads outside.

Terra is used to these late night walks of his as well, and she hardly stirs when Six steps off and heads towards the forest surrounding her. Even after years with this crew, the base is still overbearing. But the first time he withdrew from their company to the forest after their signs of life suffocated him, he found that he escaped one microcosm to drown in another. The forest carried fresh air on the wind, the night life alive and well, chirping at him as he tried to retreat into his own mind.

Not even in the Karm hamlet years after the massacre had life returned. The place he had been born to remained an empty husk, much like Six had remained the sole recipient of an abandoned throne. He had been a child too great to be contained, so they forced him to be a container, and only when he had stepped out of the bounds of preservation had he learned to become more than a vessel for a tradition he'd no longer wanted to uphold.

Joining the Eternals had been another set of expectations upon his shoulders, but they were offered to him now by someone as bright as the sun itself, someone that breathed life into everything around him until they wanted to rise to his challenges. He brings to mind Siete's laugh, and the forest around him laughs back, leaves tittering in the wind in response.

These walks remind him how it is to live life with other life around him. He escaped death in the Karm hamlet—a corporeal death, the death of his self—and found slivers of who he could have lived as in the Eternals. This miracle is one he knows is permanent; nature existed long before he could form conscious thought, and it will consume him when he takes his last breath.

Here, he is shrouded in shadow, the only dull comfort he's ever known—but now, among the darkness of the night sky, he sees the stars beyond the moon that keep watch over him. The white of his cape reflects the moonlight. He no longer blends in with the shadows as seamlessly as he once had; he is an entity separate from them now, alive with laughter, even if much of it is the other's and not his own. He carries the hopes and dreams of the Eternals to any capacity when he dons the uniform and wears it during times like this, when he is meant to be alone but cannot find it in himself to be lonely.

He is alive, like the grass underfoot, the trees that have seen his entrance into the world and will surely see him out of it, the creatures that carry their own paths. The chatter of the nightlife reminds him of the life at the base, loud and incessant and comforting in its activity.

Even in the forest like this, he cannot ruminate like he once had. From all directions comes the reminder that he is alive, that he will live another day, and that he will never stop putting one foot in front of the other alongside the people he's come to care about.

* * *

He doesn't know when it is that he returns to the base, only that the sky is lighter than the sea of stars but not yet ablaze with sunrise. The light in the kitchen is on, and he hears movement.

Everyone's footfalls are distinct, but these steps have their mark in his heart from the second they arrived to the Karm hamlet. Siete walked over them again and again, persistent in his recruitment of Six until he'd given in, until those footsteps had left a trench in their wake.

He has no obligation to announce his presence before going to rest. He knows that Siete won't try and keep him in a conversation if he doesn't want to be in one, but he also knows that Siete will have heard him enter.

Like clockwork, Siete shuffles to the kitchen entrance as Six is wiping his boots, his head peeking around the corner. "Hey."

Six nods as he weighs his sleepiness against his inexplicable desire to keep the conversation going.

"Good walk?" Siete asks. He keeps eye contact through the mask, and Six wonders how he knows to do that.

"Sufficient." At his curt answer, Siete salutes and disappears back into the kitchen.

Six planned to rest until he was awoken for the breakfast that Siete is preparing. But as he reaches the base of the stairs, something stirs within him. Like the forest he spent the night wandering, that _something_ within him is alive, and it does more than remind him that his heart is beating in his chest. It _makes_ his heart beat faster than he'd thought possible outside of battle and death and survival.

The blood pumping through his veins warms him, like the weight of the cape around his shoulders that Siete had sewn for him. The feeling rises to the surface of his skin, and while his past self may have tried to fight it, he flourishes when he instead redirects them to the things he cares about. Even if he doesn't understand, he succumbs to his urge to walk into the kitchen and observe the half-asleep Siete pulling ingredients from the fridge.

"Do you require assistance?" he mutters as he takes off his cape and hangs it over a chair, and Siete startles as he puts everything on the counter.

"Warn a guy," Siete says, clutching his heart. When his voice is still veiled with sleep, the moment feels more intimate. Seeing Siete when he's tired is unfamiliar, but not unwanted; it's easier to interact with Siete like this, when his tired smiles feel more genuine, when he lacks the energy to pretend.

"That _was_ my warning." He walks up beside Siete, and Siete yawns, leaning back on the counter and looking at him. "Are you preparing breakfast already?" he asks, looking at everything he's taken out.

"Bright and early. It's summer solstice. Funf's birthday and all that," he says, cracking his neck. "Everyone showed up for this one, so we gotta make it big."

These celebrations have gotten easier over time, too. He feels restless from his walk instead of drained of energy, and assisting Siete with preparing breakfast is a way to use up the energy that propels him now. "Then I will lend my power."

Siete nudges him with an elbow. "You don't have to be so serious about it."

"If everyone is here for the celebration, it is of utmost importance." He debates internally, and then nudges back. The motion is stiff and loaded with uncertainty, but it feels like the appropriate response. The aprons he knows are in the drawers he's standing in front of, and he when he takes one out and starts tying it around his waist, Siete still hasn't moved. The tired smile on his face looks more familiar now, twisted in an odd way that leaves Six self-conscious.

He frowns. "What's wrong with your face?"

"This is a special, Six-only face. Custom-made expression, just for you." Siete turns around in the middle of speaking, ending it with a laugh.

Six's motions slow to a halt, watching him carefully, his ears upright and alert. "You look like you're scheming more than just for the breakfast," he says, wary.

Siete shrugs. "Gotta keep you on your toes," he says, tone not giving away anything, still not turning around to face him.

He already does that for Six without having to state it. Six hasn't made peace with his past—not yet, not entirely. There's too much to process in one day or even one decade, but moving forward into the future no longer has to isolate him. Each day with them is a step away from the ghosts of the past and back into the world of the living, and beside him is the Eternals, willing to meet him as an equal and a friend.

Beside him now is Siete, being suspicious enough to keep Six wary, but acting the same way he always does. The world around him changes every day, and instead of shying away from it, he wants to meet it at his own pace. "Put your schemes aside for now. We have a birthday breakfast to cook."

**Author's Note:**

> forgive me for skimming over the part where six stops hating being part of the eternals but i've written tens of thousands of words about it already


End file.
